Project Gutenberg's The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne, by Robert Hichens This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne 1905 Author: Robert Hichens Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23415] Last Updated: December 17, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MISSION OF MR. EUSTACE GREYNE *** Produced by David Widger
1 Rue du Petit Neore. Dear Monsieur,—I am here. Poor mamma is in the hospital. I am allowed to see her twice a day. At all other times I remain alone, praying and weeping. I trust that monsieur has passed a good night. For me, I was sleepless, thinking of mamma. I go now to church. Adele Verbena.He laid this missive down, and sighed deeply. How strangely innocent it was, how simple, how sincere! There were white souls in Algiers—yes, even in Algiers. Strange that he should know one! Strange that he, who had filled a Merrin’s exercise-book with tiny writing, and had even overflowed on to the cover after “crossing” many pages, should receive the child-like confidences of one! “I go now to the church.” Tears came into his eyes as he laid the letter down beside a pile of buttered toast over which the burning afternoon sun of Africa was shining. “Monsieur will take milk and sugar?” It was the head waiter’s Napoleonic voice. Mr. Greyne controlled himself. The man was smiling intelligently. All the staff of the hotel smiled intelligently at Mr. Greyne to-day—the waiters, the porters, the chasseurs. The child of eight who was thankful that he knew no better had greeted him with a merry laugh as he came down to breakfast, and an “Oh, là, là!” which had elicited a rebuke from the proprietor. Indeed, a wave of human sympathy flowed upon Mr. Greyne, whose ashy face and dull, washed-out eyes betrayed the severity of his night-watch. “Monsieur will feel better after a little food.” The head waiter handed the buttered toast with bland majesty, at the same time shooting a reproving glance at the little chasseur, who was peeping from behind the door at the afternoon breakfaster. “I feel perfectly well,” replied Mr. Greyne, with an attempt at cheerfulness. “Still, monsieur will feel much better after a little food.” Mr. Greyne began to toy with an egg. “You know Algiers?” he asked. “I was born here, monsieur. If monsieur wishes to explore to-night again the Kasbah I can——” But Mr. Greyne stopped him with a gesture that was almost fierce. “Where is the Rue du Petit Nègre?” “Monsieur wishes to go there to-night?” “I wish to go there now, directly I have finished break—lunch.” The head waiter’s face was wreathed with humorous surprise. “But monsieur is wonderful—superb! Never have I seen a traveller like monsieur!” He gazed at Mr. Greyne with tropical appreciation. “Monsieur had better have a carriage. The street is difficult to find.” “Order me one. I shall start at once.” Mr. Greyne pushed away the sunlit buttered toast, and got up. “Monsieur is superb. Never have I seen a traveller like monsieur!” Napoleon’s voice was almost reverent. He hastened out, followed slowly by Mr. Greyne. “A carriage for monsieur! Monsieur desires to go to the Rue du Petit Nègre!” The staff of the hotel gathered about the door as if to speed a royal personage, and Mr. Greyne noticed that their faces too were touched with an almost startled reverence. He stepped into the carriage, signed feebly, but with determination, to the Arab coachman, and was driven away, followed by a parting “Oh, là là!” from the chasseur, uttered in a voice that sounded shrill with sheer amazement. Through winding, crowded streets he went, by bazaars and Moorish bath-houses, mosques and Catholic churches, barracks and cafés, till at length the carriage turned into an alley that crept up a steep hill. It moved on a little way, and then stopped. “Monsieur must descend here,” said the coachman. “Mount the steps, go to the right and then to the left. Near the summit of the hill he will find the Rue du Petit Nègre. Shall I wait for monsieur?” “Yes.” The coachman began to make a cigarette, while Mr. Greyne set forth to follow his directions, and, at length, stood before an arch, which opened into a courtyard adorned with orange-trees in tubs, and paved with blue and white tiles. Around this courtyard was a three-storey house with a flat roof, and from a bureau near a little fountain a stout Frenchwoman called to demand his business. He asked for Mademoiselle Verbena, and was at once shown into a saloon lined with chairs covered with yellow rep, and begged to take a seat. In two minutes Mademoiselle Verbena appeared, drying her eyes with a tiny pocket-handkerchief, and forcing a little pathetic smile of welcome. Mr. Greyne clasped her hand in silence. She sat down in a rep chair at his right, and they looked at each other. “Mais, mon Dieu! How monsieur is changed!” cried the Levantine. “If madame could see him! What has happened to monsieur?” “Miss Verbena,” replied Mr. Greyne, “I have seen the Ouled on the heights.” A spasm crossed the Levantine’s face. She put her handkerchief to it for a moment. “What is an Ouled?” she inquired, withdrawing it. “I dare not tell you,” he replied solemnly. “But indeed I wish to know, so that I may sympathise with monsieur.” Mr. Greyne hesitated, but his heart was full; he felt the need of sympathy. He looked at Mademoiselle Verbena, and a great longing to unburden himself overcame him. “An Ouled,” he replied, “is a dancing-girl from the desert of Sahara.” “Mon Dieu! How does she dance? Is it a valse, a polka, a quadrille?” “No. Would that it were!” And Mr. Greyne, unable further to govern his desire for full expression, gave Mademoiselle Verbena a slightly Bowdlerised description of the dances of the desert. She heard him with amazement. “How terrible!” she exclaimed when he had finished. “And does one pay much to see such steps of the Evil One?” “I gave her twenty pounds. Abdallah Jack——” “Abdallah Jack?” “My guide informed me that was the price. He tells me it is against the law, and that each time an Ouled dances she risks being thrown into prison.” “Poor lady! How sad to have to earn one’s bread by such devices, instead of by teaching to the sweet little ones of monsieur the sympathetic grammar of one’s native country.” Mr. Greyne was touched to the quick by this allusion, which brought, as in a vision, the happy home in Belgrave Square before him. “You are an angel!” he exclaimed. Mademoiselle Verbena shook her head. “And this poor Ouled, you will go to her again? “Yes. It seems that she is in communication with all the—the—well, all the odd people of Algiers, and that one can only get at them through her.” “Indeed?” “Abdallah Jack tells me that while I am here I should pay her a weekly salary, and that, in return, I shall see all the terrible ceremonies of the Arabs. I have decided to do so——— “Ah, you have decided!” For a moment Mr. Greyne started. There seemed a new sound in Mademoiselle Verbena’s voice, a gleam in her dark brown eyes. “Yes,” he said, looking at her in wonder. “But I have not yet told Abdallah Jack.” The Levantine looked gently sad again. “Ah,” she said in her usual pathetic voice, “how my heart bleeds for this poor Ouled. By the way, what is her name?” “Aishoush.” “She is beautiful?” “I hardly know. She was so painted, so tattooed, so very—so very different from Mrs. Eustace Greyne.” “How sad! How terrible! Ah, but you must long for the dear bonnet strings of madame?” Did he? As she spoke Mr. Greyne asked himself the question. Shocked as he was, fatigued by his researches, did he wish that he were back again in Belgrave Square, drinking barley water, pasting notices of his wife’s achievements into the new album, listening while she read aloud from the manuscript of her latest novel? He wondered, and—how strange, how almost terrible—he was not sure. “Is it not so?” murmured Mademoiselle Verbena. “Naturally I miss my beloved wife,” said Mr. Greyne with a certain awkwardness. “How is your poor, dear mother?” Tears came at once into the Levantine’s eyes. “Very, very ill, monsieur. Still there is a chance—just a chance that she may not die. Ah, when I sit here all alone in this strange place, I feel that she will perish, that soon I shall be quite deserted in this cruel, cruel world!” The tears began to flow down her cheeks with determination. Mr. Greyne was terribly upset. “You must cheer up,” he exclaimed. “You must hope for the best.” “Sitting here alone, how can I?” She sobbed. “Sitting here alone—very true!” A sudden thought, a number of sudden thoughts, struck him. “You must not sit here alone.” “Monsieur!” “You must come out. You must drive. You must see the town, distract yourself.” “But how? Can a—a girl go about alone in Algiers?” “Heaven forbid! No; I will escort you.” “Monsieur!” A smile of innocent, girlish joy transformed her face, but suddenly she was grave again. “Would it be right, convenable?” Mr. Greyne was reckless. The dog potential rose up in him again. “Why not? And, besides, who knows us here? Not a soul.” “That is true.” “Put on your bonnet. Let us start at once!” “But I do not wear the bonnet. I am not like madame.” “To be sure. Your hat.” And as she flew to obey him, Mr. Eustace Greyne found himself impiously thanking the powers that be for this strange chance of going on the spree with a toque. When Mademoiselle Verbena returned he was looking almost rakish. He eyed her neat black hat and close-fitting black jacket with a glance not wholly unlike that of a militiaman. In her hand she held a vivid scarlet parasol. “Monsieur,” she said, “it is terrible, this ombrelle, when mamma lies at death’s door. But what can I do? I have no other, and cannot afford to buy one. The sun is fierce. I dare not expose myself to it without a shelter.” She seemed really distressed as she opened the parasol, and spread the vivid silk above her pretty black-clothed figure; but Mr. Greyne thought the effect was brilliant, and ventured to say so. As they passed the bureau by the fountain on their way out the stout Frenchwoman cast an approving glance at Mademoiselle Verbena. “The little rat will not see much more of the little negro now,” she murmured to herself. “After all the English have their uses.”
This will never do. You are too innocent, and cannot see what lies before you. Obtain assistance. Go to the British consul.Mr. Greyne at once cabled back:
Am following your advice. Will wire result. Regret my innocence, but am distressed that you should so utterly condemn it.Upon receiving this telegram at night, before a lonely dinner, Mrs. Eustace Greyne was deeply moved. She felt she had been hasty. She knew that to very few women was it given to have a husband so free from all masculine infirmities as Mr. Greyne. At the same time there was “Catherine,” there was the mansion in Park Lane, there was the Venezuelan millionaire. She began to feel distracted, and, for the first time in her life, refused to partake of sweetbreads fried in mushroom ketchup, a dish which she had greatly affected from the time when she wrote her first short story. While she was in the very act of waving away this delicacy a footman came in with a foreign telegram. She opened it quickly, and read as follows:—
British consul horrified; was ignominiously expelled from consulate; great scandal; am much upset, but will never give in, for your sake. Eustace.As the dread meaning of these words penetrated at length to Mrs. Greyne’s voluminous brain a deep flush overspread her noble features. She rose from the table with a determination that struck awe to the hearts of the powdered underlings, and, drawing herself up to her full height, exclaimed: “Send Mrs. Forbes at once to my study, if you please—at once, do you understand?” In a moment Mrs. Forbes, who was the great novelist’s maid, appeared on the threshold of the oracle’s lair. She was a sober-looking, black-silk personage, who always wore a pork-pie cap in the house, and a Mother Hubbard bonnet out of it. Having been in service with Mrs. Greyne ever since the latter penned her last minor poetry—Mrs. Greyne had been a minor poet for three years soon after she put her hair up—Mrs. Forbes had acquired a certain literary expression of countenance and a manner that was decidedly prosy. She read a good deal after her supper of an evening, and was wont to be the arbiter when any literary matter was discussed in the servants’ hall. “Madam?” she said, respectfully entering the room, and bending the pork-pie cap forward in an attentive attitude. Mrs. Greyne was silent for a moment. She appeared to be thinking deeply. Mrs. Forbes gently closed the door, and sighed. It was nearly her supper-time, and she felt pensive. “Madam?” she said again. Mrs. Greyne looked up. A strange fire burned in her large eyes. “Mrs. Forbes,” she said at length, with weighty deliberation, “the mission of woman in the world is a great one.” “Very true, madam. My own words to Butler Phillips no longer ago than dinner this midday.” “It is the protecting of man—neither more nor less.” “My own statement, madam, to Second Footman Archibald this self-same day at the tea-board.” “Man needs guidance, and looks for it to us—or rather to me.” At the last word Mrs. Forbes pinched her lips together, and appeared older than her years and sourer than her normal temper. “At this moment, Mrs. Forbes,” continued Mrs. Greyne, with rising fervour, “he looks for it to me from Africa. From that dark continent he stretches forth his hands to me in humble supplication.” “Mr. Greyne has not been taken with another of his bilious attacks, I hope, madam?” said Mrs. Forbes. Mrs. Greyne smiled. The ignorance of the humbly born entertained her. It was so simple, so transparent. “You fail to understand me,” she answered. “But never mind; others have done the same.” She thought of her reviewers. Mrs. Forbes smiled. She also could be entertained. “Madam?” she inquired once more after a pause. “I shall leave for Africa to-morrow morning,” said Mrs. Greyne. “You will accompany me.” There was a dead silence. “You will accompany me. Do you understand? Obtain assistance from the housemaids in the packing. Select my quietest gowns, my least conspicuous bonnets. I have my reasons for wishing, while journeying to Africa and remaining there, to pass, if possible, unnoticed.” Again there was a pause. Mrs. Greyne looked up at Mrs. Forbes, and observed a dogged expression upon her countenance. “What is the matter?” she asked the maid. “Do we go by Paris, madam?” said Mrs. Forbes. “Certainly.” “Then, madam, I’m very sorry, but I couldn’t risk it, not if it was ever so——” “Why not? Why this fear of Lutetia?” “Madam, I’m not afraid of any Lutetia as ever wore apron, but to go to Paris to be drugged with absint, and put away in a third-class waiting-room like a package—I couldn’t madam, not even if I have to leave your service.” Mrs. Greyne recognised that the episode of the valet had struck home to the lady’s maid. “But you will not leave my side.” “They will absint you, madam.” “But you will travel first in a sleeping-car.” Mrs. Forbes put up her hand to her pork-pie cap, as if considering. “Very well, madam, to oblige you I will undergo it,” she said at length. “But I would not do the like for another living lady.” “I will raise your wages. You are a faithful creature.” “Does master expect us, madam?” asked Mrs. Forbes as she prepared to retire. A bright and tender look stole into Mrs. Greyne’s intellectual face. “No,” she replied. She turned her large and beaming eyes full upon the maid. “Mrs. Forbes,” she said, with an amount of emotion that was very rare in her, “I am going to tell you a great truth.” “Madam?” said Mrs. Forbes respectfully. “The sweetest moments of life, those which lift man nearest heaven, and make him thankful for the great gift of existence, are sometimes those which are unforeseen.” She was thinking of Mr. Greyne’s ecstasy when, upon the inhospitable African shore where he was now enduring such tragic misfortunes, he perceived the majestic form of his loved one—his loved one whom he believed to be in Belgrave Square—coming towards him to soothe, to comfort, to direct. She brushed away a tear. “Go, Mrs. Forbes,” she said. And Mrs. Forbes retired, smiling. An epic might well be written on the great novelist’s journey to Africa, upon her departure from Charing Cross, shrouded in a black gauze veil, her silent thought as the good ship Empress rode cork-like upon the Channel waves, her ascetic lunch—a captain’s biscuit and a glass of water—at the buffet at Calais, her arrival in Paris when the shades of night had fallen. An epic might well be written. Perhaps some day it will be, by herself. In Paris she suffered a good deal on account of Mrs. Forbes, who, in her fear of “ab-sint,” became hysterical, and caused not a little annoyance by accusing various inoffensive French travellers of nefarious designs upon her property and person. In the Gulf of Lyons she suffered even more, and as, unluckily, the wind was contrary and the sea prodigious during the whole of the passage across the Mediterranean, both she and Mrs. Forbes arrived at Algiers four hours late, in a condition which may be more easily imagined than properly described. Genius in thrall to the body, and absolutely dependent upon green chartreuse for its flickering existence, is no subject for even a sympathetic pen. Sufficient to say that, when the ship came in under the lights of Algiers, the crowd of shouting Arabs was struck to silence by the spectacle of Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes endeavouring to disembark, in bonnets that were placed seaward upon the head instead of landward, unbuttoned boots, and gowns soaked with the attentions of the waves. After being gently and permanently relieved of their light hand-baggage, the mistress and maid, who seemed greatly overwhelmed by the sight of Africa, and who moved—or rather were carried—as in a dream, were placed reverently in the nearest omnibus, and conveyed to the farthest hotel, which was situated upon a lofty hill above the town. Here a slightly painful scene took place. Having been assisted by the staff into a Moorish hall, Mrs. Greyne inquired in a reticent voice for her husband, and was politely informed that there was no person of the name of Greyne in the hotel. For a moment she seemed threatened with dissolution, but with a supreme effort calling upon her mighty brain she surmised that her husband was possibly passing under a pseudonym in order to throw America off the scent. She, therefore, demanded to have the guests then present in the hotel at once paraded before her. As there was some difficulty about this—the guests being then at dinner—she whispered for the visitors’ book, thinking that, perchance, Mr. Greyne had inscribed his name there, and that the staff, being foreign, did not recognise it as murmured by herself. The book was brought, upon its cover in golden letters the words: “Hôtel Loubet et Majestic.” Then explanations of a somewhat disagreeable nature occurred, and Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes, after a heavy payment had been exacted for their conveyance to a place they had desired not to go to, were carried forth, and consigned to another vehicle, which at length brought them, on the stroke of nine, to the Grand Hotel. Having been placed reverently in the brilliantly-lighted hall, they were surrounded by the proprietor, the maître d’hôtel and his assistants, the porters, and the chasseurs, with all of whom Mr. Greyne was now familiar. Brandy and water having been supplied, together with smelling-salts and burnt feathers, Mrs. Greyne roused herself from an acute attack of lethargy, and asked for Mr. Greyne. A joyous smile ran round the circle. “Monsieur Greyne,” said the proprietor, “who is living here for the winter?”4 “Mr. Eustace Greyne,” murmured the great novelist, grasping her bonnet with both hands. The maître d’hôtel drew nearer. “Madame wishes to see Monsieur Greyne?” he asked. “I do—at once.” A blessed consciousness of Mother Earth was gradually beginning to steal over her. She even strove feebly to sit up on her chair, a German-Swiss porter of enormous size assisting her. “But Monsieur Greyne is out.” “Out?” “Yes, madame. Monsieur Greyne is always out at night.” The eyes of the little chasseur who knew no better began to twinkle. Mrs. Forbes gave a slight cough. Tears filled the novelist’s eyes. “God bless my Eustace!” she murmured, deeply touched by this evidence of his devotion to her interests. “Madame says——” asked the proprietor. “Where does Mr. Greyne go?” inquired the novelist. “To the Kasbah, madame.” “I knew it!” cried Mrs. Greyne, with returning animation. “I knew it would be so!” “Madame is acquainted with Monsieur Greyne?” said the maître d’hôtel, while the little crowd gathered more closely about the wave-worn group. “I am Mrs. Eustace Greyne,” returned the great novelist recklessly. “I am the wife of Mr. Eustace Greyne.” There was a moment of supreme silence. Then a loud, an even piercing “Oh, là, là, broke upon the air, succeeded instantaneously by a burst of laughter that seemed to thrill with all the wild blessedness of boyhood. It came, of course, from the little chasseur; it came, and stayed. Nothing could stop it, and eventually the happy child had to be carried forth upon the sea-front to enjoy his innocent mirth at leisure and in solitude beneath the African stars. Mrs. Greyne did not notice his disappearance. She was intent upon important matters. “At what time does Mr. Greyne usually set forth?” she asked of the proprietor, whose face now bore a strangely twisted appearance, as if afflicted by a toothache. “Immediately after dinner, madame, if not before. Of late it has generally been before.” “And he stays out late?” “Very late, madame.” The twisted appearance began to seem infectious. It was visible upon the faces of most of those surrounding Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes. Indeed, even the latter showed some signs of it, although the large shadow cast over her features by the hind side of her Mother Hubbard bonnet to some extent disguised them from the public view. “Till what hour?” pursued Mrs. Greyne in a voice of almost yearning tenderness and pity. “Well, madame”—the proprietor displayed some slight confusion—“I really can hardly say. The maître d’hôtel can perhaps inform you.” Mrs. Greyne turned her ox-like eyes upon the enlarged edition of Napoleon the First. “Monsieur Greyne seldom returns before seven or eight o’clock in the morning, madame. He then retires to bed, and comes down to breakfast at about four o’clock in the afternoon.” Mrs. Greyne was touched to the very quick. Her husband was sacrificing his rest, his health—nay, perhaps even his very life—in her service. It was well she had come, well that a period was to be put to these terrible researches. They should be stopped at once, even this very night. Better a thousand literary failures than that her husband’s existence should be placed in jeopardy. She rose suddenly from her chair, tottered, gasped, recovered herself, and spoke. “Prepare dinner for me at once,” she said, “and order a carriage and a competent guide to be before the door in half-an-hour.” “Madame is going out? But madame is ill, tired!” “It matters not.” “Where does madame wish to go?” “I am going to the Kasbah to find my husband.” “I will escort madame.” The proprietor, the maître d’hôtel, the waiters, the porters, the chasseurs, Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes, all turned about to face the determined speaker. And there before them, his dark eyes gleaming, his long moustaches bristling fiercely—here stood Abdallah Jack.
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